The government has issued guidelines for implementation of the Kalaignar Veetu Vasathi Thittam (KVVT). Under the scheme, all huts in rural areas will be replaced by permanent houses with concrete roof in the next six years.
“After enumeration, we have found there are 22.02 lakh huts in rural areas. The Village Administrative Officers and panchayat assistants have completed the enumeration in a record two-month time,” says K. Ashok Vardhan Shetty, Principal Secretary, Rural Development.
The government is yet to decide on the allocation of houses to each village. If 10 houses are allocated to each village panchayat, then 8.9 per cent of the village panchayats will become hut-free after the first year itself, say officials.
With an average of eight habitations per village panchayat, the government will take up construction of houses only in a few habitations each year, starting from the habitation with the maximum number of huts.
Allocation norms
The houses will be modelled on the lines of those built under the Indira Awass Yojana (IAY). While 60 per cent of the houses built under the IAY have been allotted to Scheduled Castes, 15 per cent to minorities and the rest to others, under the KVVT, the allocation will be strictly proportional to the total number of eligible huts belonging to members of each community, Mr. Shetty said.
The enumeration has revealed that 41.5 per cent of the hutment dwellers are MBCs, followed by SCs (31.2%), BCs (23.8%), STs (2.8%) and OCs (0.7%).
The beneficiaries in each habitation will be chosen in the ascending order of new door numbers found in the May 2009 electoral roll. The Rural Development Department is in the process of taking photographs of the beneficiaries (with a slate showing door number, street, habitation and village panchayat) in front of their huts to ensure clarity and transparency, he says.
The permanent houses will be constructed in situ and no land acquisition is envisaged. Only people with pattas for their houses are eligible. Like IAY houses, the KVVT houses will be built with RCC roofing and will have separate toilet. The area of the house will be 200 sq. ft and the unit cost, Rs.60,000. The construction of 3 lakh houses under KVVT in 2010-11 is likely to begin by mid-July.
